Softly Quietly Desperately
by LaClaireFolie
Summary: Clara Oswald has always fallen in love too hard and too fast but she never minded. She had always liked love. But not when she falls in love with a guy that shows up on her doorstep dressed like a monk and whisks her away in his blue snog box. Because with him, falling in love is not hard and fast. It is quiet and soft and yes, it is desperate. Another Eleven/Clara fic.
1. Softly

Titel: Softly, Quietly, Desperately

Disclaimer: Doctor Who does not belong to me.

Synopsis: Clara Oswald has always fallen in love too hard and too fast but she never minded. She had always liked love. But not when she falls in love with a guy that shows up on her doorstep dressed like a monk and whisks her away in his blue snog box. Because with him, falling in love is not hard and fast. It is quiet and soft and yes, it is desperate.

Author's note: I started writing this after seeing the trailer for "Rings of Akhaten", but before the episode had actually aired and only finished the second chapter now. Since I never upload before I have at least two chapters, I'm only posting this now and it only fits if you ignore big parts of what happened during ROA and everything that happens afterwards. Sorry for the mess but I'm too lazy (and too busy with school stuff) to rewrite it. Please tell me what you think, I would love to hear your opinion.

Love, Claire

Softly

"This is actually what you do? Do you just crook your finger and people just jump into your snog box and fly away?" She looks at the ceiling and at him and smiles. It is a beautiful snog box and snogging in the snog box with the guy the snog box belongs to might be good and she really hopes her brain stops throwing thoughts like that at her because as the Doctor has just exclaimed this is not a snog box. "I'll be the judge of that." She replies and arches an eyebrow and smiles.

His reply is instantaneous and a question: "Starting when?" as he steps closer to her and crosses his arms and uncrosses them and just generally awkwardly hovers in front of her and no, she is not going to grab his shirt collar to bring his lips down on her own, she is not doing that, that would be so clichéd, no way, nope, not now, not ever.

She hesitates. Internally she is long since screaming "Yes I will come with you and I will never ever leave you again because this great, this is fantastic and I already love this way too much to walk away from any of this" but she still hesitates. There are things she needs to organize before she can leave with him, she isn't the kind to just walk away from everything she ever knew without preparation and good byes so she finally opens her mouth and says: "Come back tomorrow. Ask me again." And she is not playing hard to get, she really isn't, but it all still seems like a dream to her and she wants, no, needs to know that this is real, actually properly real, so she asks him to ask her again tomorrow. He frowns and looks disappointed and asks why and again her resolve almost falters because she really really wants to go with him but she still tells him that she might say yes tomorrow even though internally she has already said yes a thousand times.

When she gets back into her room, she does a quick once over and smiles to herself. The flowers are still on her bedside table even though they're already dead because they look so pretty and because he put them there. The book about the 101 places is the second thing she sees and she grabs it and runs her hand down the small spine. This is one of the few things she will take with her.

She spends her day the way she always spends it, with Angie and Artie – who she has to comfort after he has read chapter eleven of Summer Falls – in the garden and helping them with their homework before she prepares dinner, trying to not drop anything because she is nervous about the announcement she has to make.

They notice that she barely eats anything and George finally asks her what is going on. She fidgets a bit, drumming her fingers against her upper arm before she puts down her fork and smiles at them. "I... I'm sorry that I'm only anouncing this now, but... I've been given an unexpected opportunity to travel and I would like to take it. I know this is quite sudden and I understand if you feel... let down, but I've only heard about it yesterday..." Her voice falters when she notices that she is probably rambling a bit too much by now.

"When are you leaving?" asks George finally after what feels like a small eternity of silence.

She bites on her lower lip. "Tomorrow. Some time after seven." She swallows, another half formed apology on her lip waiting to be spoken, but when she catches Georges eyes, she swallows that, too.

"Good. I thought you'd never leave."

"What?"

He sighs and looks at her. "Clara, you've been with us for a year now. And though we all enjoyed your company and are very grateful for your help, you have been talking about traveling ever since you were a little girl. It is time you finally do it."

She feels a tidal wave of happiness crashing down on her and tries very, very heard not to cry when she hears a tiny sob from beside her. It's Angie who's crying beside her and she stands up and walks over and pulls the girl into a tight hug.

"I'm so, so sorry, Angie. I'm sorry to leave you like this, but I promise I'll be back. And soon."

Angie, who has her head burried into the crook of her neck shakes it. "Don't... don't you dare come back early for us, Clara." She just nods.

They watch a movie together after dinner, curled up on the couch with Angie and Artie firmly nestled against her. They both seem saddened by the fact that she's leaving, but George looks at her with something akin to maybe possibly pride - or something – when she catches him and they exchange small smiles.

After the movie the kids go bed - she tucks them in for the last time and they all try very hard to not cry but fail spectacularly – and on her way back upstairs where she still has some packing left to do she meets George.

"Angie was right, you know. Don't come back too soon. Stay away for a year, better two, maybe three." She nods. "And Clara, we are very grateful for all you did for us. You will be missed. By everyone."

"It's been great, George. And I'm glad you're not... angry or anything."

They exchange smiles again and he opens his arms and invites her for a hug. "Come here, you."

When she feels like the hug lasts a little too long and is a little too tight to still be appropiate, she frees herself and apologizes because she still has to pack. And she really has to, even though it is a bit problematic because what does one pack when one goes on a journey through all of time and space?

She decides to pack clothes for all kinds of weather and personal stuff. She can't pack clothes for all times, through, because she doesn't own clothing that she could wear in the 16th or the 52nd century or whenever he takes her. She hopes he has that kind of stuff because she isn't sure what would happen if she ran around medival London in one of her modern day dresses. Her eyes fall on her 101 places book and she throws it into her bag, knowing full well that the Doctor won't take her to see them, but she can't remember not having this book. Then she picks up a little book with her favorite photographes and places that in her bag as well. After all she wants to remember the faces of her friends and her family where – and whenever she goes.

It was a present by her dad, made years ago and given to her directly after she had graduated, because everyone had thought that she would leave pretty soon and he wanted her to have something to remember home by. Holding it now, knowing that she will leave the next morning, she feels tears dwelling up in her eyes again, but rubs over them with her shirt sleeve and then grabs the telephone. Time to call her dad.

It is one minute after seven when she hears that odd, but somehow familiar sound again and rushes out into the garden. The snog box is back and so is the Doctor, leaning against the door frame and smiling at her widely.

"So, Clara Oswald, are you going to come away with me?"

"Well..." she answers, drawing out the e and grinning widely. "Yes. Let me just get my stuff."

"You have stuff."

"I have stuff. And I'll be back in a second so don't you go wandering off!" She exclaims and without waiting to hear his answer she whirls around, runs up the stairs, grabs her suitcase – a rather small one with a rose pattern on it – and runs back downstairs and out. He hasn't moved a bit. "Good boy."

"You packed that yesterday, didn't you?" He says and eyes her suitcase almost suspicously.

"I might."

He shakes his head and holds the door open for her, walking in behind her and closing it. He seems ridiculously happy to have her around, beaming like Father Christmas and jumping like a little kid on a sugar rush around what seems to be the console where he starts pulling on levers and pushing buttons and just generally doing stuff that sets the snog box into motion. It shakes and vibrates and she clutches the rail of the stairs while her suitcase flew through the room and almost hit the Doctor's head.

"Oh God, I'm sorry! Are you alright?" she exclaims.

He turns around and grins. "I'm fine. Have survived worse. But it would be great if you could put it away, I'd rather not be killed by suitcase, thank you very much."

"You were the one to get the snogbox moving, chin boy!" But the ride is becoming quieter so she lets go off the rail and skips up the last few stairs until she's next to her suitcase. "Is it always like this bumpy? Can't you fly it properly?"

"Oi! I'll have you know I'm an excellent pilot, than you very much!" His reply is filled with mock outrage and there's twinkle in his eyes that makes her want to hug him. "If you're looking for your bedroom, just go down that corridor, take a turn left and open the first door on your right." She nods and picks up her suitcase. "And do hurry up, there is a planet waiting to be explored."

She does hurry to find her bedroom, but when she's there she slows down quite a bit, mostly because she's taken aback by the room so much. It is a beautiful one and quite similiar to her room back at home, except that everything is a bit bigger. She especially loves the bed, a king sized one with red sheets and she sinks onto them for a moment. It's extremely soft, like what she imagines sleeping on a cloud would feel like. But as she feels herself getting drowsy, she jumps up again, opens her suitcase, takes out a light black jacket and heads back to the control room.

"Took you long enough." He greets her. "Ready to see the universe?"

She grins. There are so many feelings bubbling up inside of her – excitement, joy, happiness, but also a bit of fear and nervousness – and she isn't sure if her voice will be okay or all croaky, so she just nods.

He makes his way towards the door, she trailing him, but when he's about to push it open, he falters and whirls around. "Wait a moment." He digs around in one of his jacket's pockets until he found something and exclaimed "Aha!" Then he hands it to her, closing her hand around it and then kissing it before pressing a kiss onto her forehead.

She feels the shape and material and knows he has just handed her a key before even looking at it. However, she still opens her fist and stares at the key, feeling an unidentifiable mixture of emotions rising up in her. It takes a physical form when she feels her eyes misting over. "What... what is this?"

"A TARDIS key." He explains, a hand still resting on her cheek. "Your TARDIS key, to be precise."

She swallows and blinks rapidly to clear her sight again. "I... I don't know why I'm crying."

He looks at her with something she can't identify, a mixture that seems to consist of joy and grief and worry and a deep and profound happiness before he kisses her forehead yet again and then clasps both her hands in his own. "Clara Oswald, remember this. Remember today. Remember this precise moment now because this is when everything changes."

She nods, still not trusting her voice.

He lets her go and she places the key in her pocket, one hand still clasped around it. "Alright then! Let us go then, you and I!" With those words, he throws open the doors and she follows him outside.

When she leans against the TARDIS console after a nice hot shower after her first proper outer space adventure with the foolish alien that picked her of all people, she still can't really believe it. But there are burning questions on her tongue, things she wants and needs to ask but doesn't quite know how to put into words. So she rubs the towel against her still damp hair and watches the Doctor jump around her, steering the TARDIS and absentmindedly humming to himself.

But the words that alien man said when he heard that the Doctor was a Time Lord wouldn't leave her mind so when the ride has stabilized, she clears her throat and watches him swifel around to face her. "Doctor... that man... what did he mean when he said he thought Time Lords were extinct? And why did you say they were except for you?"

He leans against the console next to hear and looks at her for a second before ruffling through his hair and staring at his hands. He sighs and when he finally starts talking, his voice is so low she almost has to lean in to hear him. "Because I am. Everyone else is... gone. Long since dead."

She doesn't know how to react. There are no words or gestures of comfort she can over, none of them feel appropriate. She feels the grief oozing through every single pore of his skin and she doesn't know how to deal with it, she doesn't know how to help him because she has never met someone like him before. And she feels immobilized.

Then, what feels like minutes or hours or a small eternity, she unfreezes and grabs his hand, squeezing it ever so slightly. There is another question burning in her mind and she asks it, she asks how, even though it will cause him even more grief.

He stares at the ceiling of the TARDIS and closes and opens his eyes before replying, but he doesn't let go of her hand, instead he grabs it tighter as he talks about a war called the Time War that was fought between his people and a race called the Daleks and that no one won. He almost breaks her fingers when he tells her that his home is gone now and that there was only on survivor.

"Me."

His voice is so very quiet and broken that she reads the word from his lip rather than actually hears it. But she throws her arms around him nonetheless, hoping to comfort him at least a tiny bit even if this is a stupid, meaningless gesture.

"I'm all alone." He whispers into her hair.

"I'm so, so sorry." She whispers into his hair. "I'm so sorry for everything."

He lets her go and smiles at her. "No need to worry, Clara."

She detects the lie so very easily and leans her head against his shoulder. "Is that why you took me with you? So you don't have to be alone anymore?"

"Yeah. I should never be alone. I'm rubbish on my own."

It's later that same day when she sits in her room, on her own, about to go to sleep, that she allows herself to think about the things they haven't talked about. She thinks about the grand daughter he mentioned and about the fact that he said that everyone except him is that, meaning that he must have lost her as well. And what about his children and their mother? His parents? His siblings? He has lost everyone and she can't even begin to fathom what he must feel like.

And then there's the other thing they didn't talk about, the words that the strange man replied with when the Doctor said that he was the exception and that made him so angry that she was scared of him for a split second.

_"I heard rumours about_ _a man that survived... more like a devil than a man, a creature drenched in the blood of everyone he ever loved, of his entire race. I heard his survival was his punishment for he was the one that killed everyone and now you are standing in front of me... the last of the Time Lords. Seems like the rumours are true."_

She didn't dare ask him if that was true or what had happened, but his pain was so obvious to her that she thinks it is possibly the truth.

And that scares her because what kind of man is she traveling with?

She has seen his kindness and his care not only today, but also when he was in London with her, but she also feels like there is something dark and almost sinister about him. She trusts him and she knows he would never hurt her, but at the same time, she is almost scared of him. There is something about him that sets her on edge but at the same time comforts her endlessly.

She falls back onto her pillow and curls up under her blankets, her mind wandering back to the feel of his hand in hers, his nails digging into her skin while he talks ever so quietly and she doesn't know why, but she feels herself crying.

It is the first time she cries herself to sleep in a long time.

Clara has always fallen in love just that little bit too hard and that little bit too fast. It happens during a few moments and she never knows why, but suddenly someone infiltrates her mind and her heart and sometimes she can't think of anyone or anything else for bloody days.

But this time, when Clara sleepily leaves her room and stumbles to the kitchen, still in her pijama and barefoot, her hair probably looking like a bird's nest, only to find him there, sitting at the table poking a fork at a self made souffle and he turns around and smiles and says "Hello, gorgeous" with a wink and a huge grin, she feels like the floor slips from under her feet for a few seconds.

When Clara falls in love, it always happens with a bang and rather hardly, but this time, when she is looking at the a thousand year old, foolish alien with two hearts that can't fly a plane but still did, it happens softly, quite like the feeling of slipping from reality into sleep.


	2. Quietly

_A big thank you to those of you who read this and liked it and thus followed it or favorited it or reviewed! I was kind of insecure about it because it's my first fanfic for Doctor Who and I'm really not sure if I got the Doctor right, but if so many people liked it, I must've done okay. A special thank you to SunnySmile1324, Midnight in the Morning (what a beautiful name!) and WinchesterSmile for their encouraging reviews._

And now, without further ado, here is "Quietly."  
Love, ClaireFolie

Quietly

"Here, try this one." The Doctor says and hands her something that looks quite a lot like ice cream but she knows it isn't because they are on some beautiful alien planet he hasn't yet told her the name of.

"Thanks." She smiles up at him and there's a warmth in her stomach that doesn't have anything to do with the third sun of the planet that is now shining high above them while the second one settles.

It is a beautiful, this planet, orbiting three suns at once, meaning that it is never really dark and that the night is more like dawn. The water is a strange color, somewhere between blue and purple, the houses remind her of the corals she saw when she once went diving during a family holiday on Kreta and the dogs have no noses.

She tenatively licks the ice cream like thingy and is amazed at how great it tastes, even though the feeling of it on her tongue is a bit odd, like little diamonds or crystals or something, but soft. "Wow." She mumbles.

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah, a lot. What's the taste, though?"

He shrugs. "A local fruit. Very good source of potassium, but I can't remember the name."

She nods, eats a bit more of the ice cream – she has decided to call it that even though it isn't ice cream at all – and feels a grin spread across her face. "So is this you making up for what happened last time?"

He grins, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Yeah, I figured we could go somewhere less dangerous for a change."

"What's wrong with dangerous?" she asks and his smile is suddenly replaced by a deep frown as he watches her. "It's my fault as well, you know. Wandering off in the East End of London in 1888 without thinking like that... just plain stupid, really."

"Well, I never met anyone who could grasp the concept of 'don't wander off'. Or 'do everything I tell you'. Or 'don't ask stupid questions'. Makes me wonder why I keep traveling with you lot."

"Oh! Mister Grumpy!" she exclaims, hitting him playfully. He doesn't react at all, just stares at her more intensly and with a deepend frown. "What's wrong?"

"I look at you every single day and I don't understand a thing about you."

"Well, that's a mutual feeling." By now she has reached the cone that tastes a bit salty but still good in combination with what is left of the ice cream. "So, why did you take me here? Just for sight seeing and ice cream?"

"Mostly for sight seeing and ice cream, yes." He answers and stretches while she's watching him from the corner of her eyes.

She smiles. "No monsters to defeat this time? No cheap demagoge to bring down before tea? No civilization to save?" She teased.

He shakes his head. "No. This planet has been peaceful for millenias. It's quite the popular place for tourists. Voted number three planet in the top ten greatest destinations for the discerning intergalactic traveler." He turns to her. "Thus, no monsters, no demagogues, no saving. Just... " He bops her nose and winks and she thinks how much he is like a teenager sometimes. "... ice cream." She nods, but he stays hovering in fron of her, looking down at her almost curiously. She frowns and he licks over his lips, seemingly preparing to ask a question and she waits until he finally opens his mouth and asks: "The woman in the shop who gave you that number you called about not being able to find the Internet... what did she look like?"

Her frown deepens a bit as she tries desperately to remember that woman. "Dunno... I think she was in her fourties... she wore a lot of lipstick... and her hair was... this odd color of brown and blonde and really, really curly. She called me sweetie. "

His eyes widen and he opens his mouth to speak but no sound come out and he closes it again and then opens it and then closes it before he just grabs her hand, turns around with her and drags her away, back into the direction they just came from, back to the TARDIS and she tries to protest but he doesn't listen and then finally she's just had enough and grabs the first thing they pass – something like a tree – and makes him stop. "Doctor! What's going on? Why are you dragging me back?"

"This, Clara Oswald, is fascinating and fantastic and unbelievable and improbable and very, very cool if it is what I think it is and so we have to go right now."

"Okay." But she throws him a glare anyway for good measure or something to go with what she still wants to say. "But I'm not... I'm not your doll or something. You can't drag me around like this, Doctor, because I. Am. Not. Your. Doll. Alright?"

"Alright. Sorry." She nods and then they walk back to the TARDIS, their hands brushing against each other but not really touching. His excitement doesn't seem so big anymore, but when they reach the TARDIS he throws open the doors and skips up the stairs and runs around the console and pushes buttons like a three year old that has accidentally been given coffee. She just holds on to one of the rails because when they fly of into the Vortex, it gets all bumpy again.

"Doctor!" She exclaims when things have calmed down a bit and he whirls around and grins at her ecstatically. "What was the name of that planet we just left?"

"That..." His grin becomes even wider if that is possible. "That was Barcelona."

~

When he turns away from the console after their ships has landed to face her, his face seems a bit harder, a bit colder than she has ever seen it and his gaze is so intense that she feels he will burn her heart out. He crosses over to her within seconds and stops directly in front of her, cupping her face with both his hands and staring straight into her eyes.

"Right then, Clara Oswald. This place is dangerous, but there's someone here I need to talk to. And you can't keep me company, you can't come with me now, but I promise I'll be back soon. Do you understand?"

She swallows. He is almost frightening her, being so extremely serious like she has never before seen him. "Why?"

"Just... trust me on this. Don't walk out of the TARDIS. Stay in here. No matter how bored or worried you get, stay in here. Alright?"

Finally, she nodds. He lets go of her and stomps of towards the door, but she won't let him go without a few answers first and thus grabbs his jacket's sleeve. "Doctor, what is going on here? What is this place? Why should I stay in here?"

He doesn't turn around. "It's called The Library. And I have lost people here. That won't happen again. I won't lose you. So you need to stay safe in here."

She nodds and lets him go, waiting until he seems to be far away enough for her to pry open the door and glance out, only to see a wall of books in a high room. With a sigh, she is about to close the door and walk back into the kitchen or her room but a voice stopps her.

"Hello, Sweetie."

She gasps as she recognizes the voice and presses her ear against the tiny opening of the door.

"Hello, River." His voice sounds defeated and sad, but there is an unknown softness and almost an edge of happiness to it. It sounds conflicted in a way she has never heard before.

"I was wondering wether you would ever come to visit me."

"Well, I am here now. I was just... a bit busy."

"How much time has passed?"

"Quite a while."

"And our time lines..."

"Are going into the same direction for a change."

"Well, isn't that nice."

"Yeah, it is."

"And what really brought you here?"

"I... nothing. Just wanted to see you."

"Oh, my love, you have always been a horrible liar."

"Or you have always been able to read me like an open book."

There was a moment of silence that allowed Clara to think about the idea of stepping out of the TARDIS but she wasn't sure if she should interrupt the conversation she was eavesdropping onto. And after all, the Doctor had warned her, saying that this place was dangerous and she was to stay safely in here.

"But you're right, I didn't just come to see you. You don't happen to have handed the number of the TARDIS to a girl while working in a shop, do you?"

She can almost hear the smile of that woman called River in her voice. "Yes, I do happen to have given your number to a girl."

"What did you do that for? How did you even... it's not even a real phone!"

"Of course you would say that."

"What do you mean?"

"Spoilers."

"Then at least tell me why."

"Because my mother was right. You should never be alone, Doctor. You need someone by your side, someone to take care of you, someone to stop you."

"Then why didn't you come with me?"

"Only one psychopath per TARDIS, my love. And you were looking for her so desperately. I thought I should help you." There's a heavy silence and even though she's pressed against the door, she knows there is something more this woman isn't saying yet. "And I always did know that we where moving into opposite directions. You need something else, something different, something normal. Someone who will stay by your side."

"Are you telling me to let go of you?"

She hears it again now, this edge of sadness and almost desperation in his voice and now has to fight down the urge of running out to hug him. And suddenly it becomes clear to her that she is listening in onto a quite private conversation that maybe shouldn't have been overheard by anyone, especially not by her. Almost immediately she shies away from the door, leaving it open and heads up the stairs, past the console and towards the kitchen closest to the console room.

Baking has always been her way of dealing with things she doesn't know how to handle otherwise and the conversation she just overheard definitely is one of those things.

~

She hears the doors open and close when she has just put the first souffle into the oven, not knowing how long it has been since she decided to stop eavesdropping on him and the shopwoman that gave her his number. She hopes he will come to see her, but he doesn't and so she turns her attention back to the kitchen table that's decked with flour and egg shells to start tidying up a bit. She has started cleaning the bowl she used to prepare the doug and is up to her ellbows in soapy water when she hears steps behind her.

"Hey." She whispers without looking over her shoulder. After all, it can only be one person and she isn't sure if she'll be able to look at him after what she just heard. She has had the time to contemplate everything she had heard, but there are things that don't make sense to her and she is also pretty sure she won't be able to handle seeing the sadness she has only heard so far. "Have you taken care of... whatever needed caretaking?"

"Yes, I have." He answers, his grief easily shining through his false cheeriness and she lets go of the bowl because it still takes her by surprise.

She has seen and heard his grief before and she knows of the biggest tragedy in his life, but that doesn't mean she knows all his tragedies. And whatever just happened, whoever he just talked to, she knows that woman is wrapped in another one of his big tragedies she has no knowledge of. He's normally so light hearted and fun to be around that whenever she sees a tiny bit of what he hides it always surprises her.

The bowl – a glass one, of course, that's just her luck – shatters – yes, the stupid kitchen sink is deeper than it looks – and she yerks back when she feels something sting her finger. "Ouch!" When she pulls both her arms out of the sink, they're dripping water all over the place and she doesn't even get a chance to look at her finger because the Doctor has already grabbed both her hands.

"What happened? Are you hurt? Are you alright?" he asks, frantically turning her hands over and over and inspecting them.

She smiles up at him. "Yes, of course. Just a little cut, nothing bad. See?" She shows him her ring finger that's bleeding ever so slightly. "I let that stupid bowl slip and it broke. It's nothing."

He nods, takes of his jacket, places it on a chair, makes his way towards the sink and before she can protest, he has his hands in the water and starts pulling out the remaining glass shards. Wordlessly she joins him and they scrabble about to find them all, their hands touching ever so slightly from time to time. They don't even look at each other.

After about thirty seconds – they have each only found about two or three pieces of glass of what feels like a billion – that feel like so much longer, she can't take the quiet anymore. "So... what did you do out there?"

"Talked to an... a..." He's so lost for words, for a name to put on whatever that woman was to him that she can't help but glance at him while he tries to label her. He looks pained and confused and happy and sad and this time she willingly caresses his hand when they try to grab the same piece of glass. "Talked to my wife."

And again she lets something – a shard of glass – slip from her grasp because she is too surpised and again it shatters. "You... your wife?" That hurts. He has a wife. He is married. He has a wife and she is falling for him.

"Yes. I talked to my wife, Professor River Song."

She doesn't look up again to see his face and instead lets her hair fall between them while she fights the urge to cry and the lump in her throat. Finally she is able to swallow and ask: "If... if you're married to her, why isn't she traveling with you?"

She hears him swallow, but doesn't look up just yet. "Because... because she's long gone."

Now she looks at him and there is just so much sadness in his eyes and voice and overall demeanor that she can't help it, she grabs his hand in the sink and squeezes it. "I'm so sorry." But then what he just said really registers with her, she lets his hand go and stares at the wall of the kitchen for a few moments. "But... if she's... gone... how were you talking to her?"

He sighs. "It's all very... complicated."

"What's wrong with complicated?"

He flashes her his dazzling, goofy smile. "Alright. So. This library is populated by the Vastha Nerada, the piranhas of the air. They're microscopic carnivores that can strip someone to their bones in milliseconds. That's why you coulnd't go out there. But this Library contains the largest hard drive in the history of ever in its core and when the Vashta Nerada attacked, every visitor was saved to the computer." She notices that for a change he doesn't talk so incredibly fast, at a thousand miles per hour, he really tries to explain this to her so she can understand. "When I first visited the Library, I met River there and when I wanted to link myself to the computer to restore the people saved within it... she knocked me out, cuffed me to the wall and took my place, sacrificing herself to save everyone."

"But..." She tries to say, but he shushes her.

"Now comes the good part. See, I had handed her my screwdriver, but it wasn't just my screwdriver anymore. There was a neural relay hidden inside it in which her consciousness was saved. I uploaded her to the Library's computer, meaning that she is living in a virtual reality that still enables her to talk to me using a curtesy node."

"What's a curtesy node?"

"It's a sculpted computer terminal that helps visitors of the Library to find books and stuff. They choose a face they think a patron will like which in my case automatically means River. And she being who she is, she found a way to use the node to actually communicate with me." She nods. Yes, it is all a bit complicated and unususal, but then, what is usual about this? "That doesn't mean we won't meet her, though."

Now she was starring at him completely flabbergasted. "But I thought..."

He grins at her. "I'm a time traveller. And so is she. We have never... progressed into the same direction. It's all... timey – wimey and bumpy – wumpy. When I first met her in the Library, I had now idea who she was, but she knew everything about me. And when she first met me, she had no idea who I was, but I knew her. So. We might see her again."

She nods and stares at the sink in which all their hands were still searching for the glass shards. "You said she sacrificed herself for you."

"Yes. She did."

His hand brushes against hers and she looks at him, watching his profile while he takes another glass shard out of the water – really, how many of those things are in there? – and places it on top of the cupboard beside him. "So... is this what people do? Sacrifice themselves so you can live?" She hears him suck in air, shocked by her question, but before he can say anything she keeps talking. "I mean, I think I understand why they do it. You're... you're so old and so... so important to the Universe, to the people... you give them hope by saving everyone again and again. I guess they can't imagine a universe without you... so we'd rather die in your place than let you."

"No!" He has wheeled around and grabbed her shoulders and stares at her with a bewildered desperation in his eyes that makes her breath stop. "NO! Don't you dare think something like that ever again. You are just as important as I am and I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself. Never. Do you understand, Clara Oswald? You do never get to throw your life away to save mine. I won't let that happen. Never, do you hear me?"

His grip on her is so tight it almost hurts, his wet fingers soak her shirt and his eyes are so intense it puts a deadlock on her entire vocabulary. She knows he cares about her, she knows because it is so obvious, he has been so fiercly protective of her from the first time he showed up on her doorstep – _"Are you guarding me?" "Well yes. Yes, I am."_ – and it has shown every time it seemed like she was in the slightest bit of danger since then, but this is new, this burning intensity and the swirl of emotion in his eyes make her speecheless. So she reacts the only way she knows, by pulling him into a tight embrace while his hands still rest on her shoulders. "I heard you." She whispers, not saying that she won't, because she doesn't make that kind of promise, but yes, she heard him.

His hands wander, one to her waist and one to her neck and he pulls her closer, hugs her tighter, almost squeezing the air out of her lungs. "I'm not losing you." He whispers into her hair and a shiver runs down her spine as she closes her eyes and allows herself to feel and partially to forget.

~

Because Clara has always fallen in love a little bit too hard and a little bit too fast, but everything is different with him, she just goes along with things when he takes her to a market the next day, a big, bright, alien market full of life and laughter and there's a festival, a greeting of spring and they dance and he laughs and she nuzzles her head against his shoulder and he kisses her forehead and holds her hand and makes her compliments and when a male alien, a kind of humanoid – ish good – looking one, asks if he can dance with her he gives him a short and rather impolite response consisting only of the word "no" and dances four more dances with her before she gets him to finally let her catch a breath.

Sitting at a table while he is off to fetch them something to drink, Clara thinks about him, about the way he kept glancing at her over his shoulder while he wanders off into the crowd and about how he sometimes seems to touch her even though it isn't necessary and she thinks of the ones she loved before him and how different it was.

With them, she realizes, it was always spoken out loudly. She has never kept her affection for someone secret, when she is in love, Clara says it, partly because that always makes it seem more real and partly because she wants them to know. She doesn't need to hear it back, she believes that true affection shows in gestures and actions more than in words, but at the same time she usually feels the need to put her own into words. Just to be sure.

But again with the Doctor everything is different. Not only because he has a wife, but also because they are friends and she loves the deep friendship they have, the mutual understanding, the companionship and the trust. It all feels balanced and she is scared to upset that balance by saying something. At the same time it all feels so large, so she fears that if she was to put it in words it would become smaller and in a way, less pure.

When Clara falls in love she says it out loud, she never keeps it as a secret, but this time, it is a feeling that she keeps to herself quietly.


	3. Desperately

_So, my lovelies. This is the third and last chapter of "Softly, Quietly, Desperately". A huge thank you to DragonRose4, ImTiredRightNow, MrsWhovian, SammehMai, SarBrook, SunnySmile1324, TGalloway, Whouffle, WiseGirl-AC, coconut0111, emflawlesswatson, esthealice17, galapagos tortoise, gingerbluez, swimwiththestars, teruel-a-witch, thecenterofthetardis and zoeinthetardis for following this story. An equally huge thank you to DWF, EdernaW, Midnight in the Morning, emflawlesswatson, maelmorth, , Rose van Alen, SammehMai, sc0ut-finch, SunnySmile1324, swiftryanc, thecenterofthetardis_, _Whouffle, WinchesterSmile, Winnipup28 and WiseGirl-AC for putting the story on their favorites list. And a third, just as big thank you goes to SunnySmile1324, Midnight in the Morning, WinchesterSmile and zoeinthetardis for writing reviews. Thank you all so much! I'm really glad that you all liked the story._

And now, without further ado, the last chapter.  
Love, ClaireFolie.

Desperately

She desperately cries out for him as they drag him away from her and feels the tears run down her cheeks as she struggles against their arms, not looking away from his eyes that are transfixed on her. He doesn't struggle against them as they drag him down the out of the room, not like she does, but his eyes are kind of wide with fear and she screams for him another time. Then the door closes in front of her.

~

"Can we go to the future? I mean, to the future on Earth." She leans against the kitchen table and they've just had breakfast, he's putting away the now clean stuff they used and they've just discussed what they should do today. He doesn't answer at first so she keeps talking. "You know, I have been to other planets and to the past, but I'd love to see the future. Not my future, of course, that would probably create a paradox, just the future."

"Of course we can." He says and then turns around, giving her her favorite smile of his. "Any year in particular?"

She shakes her head and he offers her hand that she takes without hesitation. They walk to the control room hand in hand, her shoulder brushing against his arm, finger intertwined, just like they did yesterday and the day before and the day before that.

~

"Wow." She whispers, crooning her head as she stares upwards. "So... this is the future then? The future of the Earth?"

The TARDIS has materialised on a sort of street, except it's only for pedestrians and far above the ground, between various sky scrapers but still not up far enough to really see the sky. The road is made of glass, as are most of the buildings, but it seems like you can't really see what is on the other side of the glass.

"Yes."

"Where are we?"

"Cardiff." He answers and when he sees her frown, he starts to explain something about a rift and refueling the TARDIS but he is talking too fast for her to really keep up so she just nods along. "It'll take a while, so how about we go and see what kind of food this century has to offer?"

She agrees and they walk down the street, arms linked together until they find a skyscraper that seems to have a restaurant on a roof terrace. They just exchange a grin and head in and up, talking about everything and nothing while they find a table and order and wait and eat.

She watches the people around them and notices that there are aliens as well as humans and quite a lot of lizard – like ones. Almost as many of those as humans.

The Doctor notices her glances and smiles. "They are called Silurians. They've lived here long before you evolved, but stayed hidden for centuries. Apparently you finally managed to find a way of living alongside each other." He explains and there's almost something like pride in his features. "And not just Silurians. You've managed to establish good relationships with so many species."

She smiles at him. "It's kind of weird, you know? All those aliens everywhere and no one is bothered. At all. I can't imagine a scene like this in... you know, my time."

~

She's wandering the TARDIS at night, sleep being the last thing that seems will come near her after their recent adventure. They had been to a jungle planet with wild, carnivorous beasts and a barely developed civilaziton of humanoid aliens and had stayed in one of their villages for a while until it had been attacked by the beast. She had never before seen anything like them. They reminded her faintly of lions, but had been almost twice as big as her with sharp claws, a sort of spiky tail and a deadly venom in their teeth. With the Doctors help they had managed to chase the beasts away, but not without loosing a few of the villagers to them, one of those being a young girl that had beared a striking resemblance to Angie that died in her arms.

When they had gotten back to the TARDIS after the funerals, she had made a beeline for her room and cried, not wanting anyone, especially not the Doctor, to see her and now she couldn't sleep, scared of the nightmares that she was sure would haunt her if she closed her eyes. She had had quite a few of them by now, but the very idea of the nightmare she might have today made her sick beyond imagionation and so she rather spend the night walking around the Doctors – their? – ship, cradling a mug of steaming hot tea.

She turns a corner and find herself in a long hallway she has never been in before. It is empty except for a wodden door at the very end of it and she turns around and is about to walk away when she hears it. A guttural, heart wrenching scream that has her running down the corridor within seconds. She flings the door open and finds herself in a luxurious bedroom with clothes strewn all over the place and an enourmous four poster bed slap bang in the middle of the room.

And tangled in the red covers of the bed is the Doctor, screaming and tossing in his sleep.

She's beside him within seconds, gripping his shoulders and shaking him, saying his name over and over again, but she doubts that he can hear her over his own screams. Her voice grows louder, her shaking more forceful with her growing worry. "DOCTOR!" she finally yells, her voice breaking on the last syllable and suddenly his eyes fly open and he blinks at her, disorientatad and sleepy. Without thinking about the fact that he is probably shirtless and possibly scared, she pulls him up into a hug, burying his head against the crook of his neck and her hands in his hair. It takes him a moment, but he hugs her back tightly, too tightly actually and she can hardly breathe and then she realizes that he is shaking – crying – and doesn't protest.

She just holds him instead until he has calmed down.

It feels longer, but it doesn't take more than a few minutes until he lets her go – if she's honest, she wouldn't have minded if he hadn't – and looks at her questioningly. She suddenly feels embarrassed and awkward, sitting next to a shirtless and kind of disoriented Doctor, so she just stares at her hands and waits for either one of them to speak. Neither of them does, he just stares at her, she just stares at her hands and it's all so very uncomfortable that she just gets up, brushes her hand through her hair and mumbles something.

She's only three steps away from the bed when he speaks.

"Clara. Please stay tonight."

She does.

~

It becomes a common occurence after that. Whenever he goes to sleep – which isn't every night, he is a Time Lord after all – he wordlessly holds out his hand and she takes it without second thought.

His bed is big, too big for one person and big enough for them to sleep in it without ever touching, but that's not what they do. Instead they always sleep huddled together as if they were trying to fit into a small cot intended for one small person.

But nothing ever happens during those nights, no flirting, no kissing, no making out. They only sleep together, in the most innocent way, because it keeps his nightmares at bay. Oh, she doubts that they're gone, but they seem less terrible and that is at least something. And he even wears a shirt and even though they are cheeky and flirtatious and ambiguous as always, when he takes her hand to lead her to his bedroom, they become somber and serious.

During breakfast after the second night, he once asks her how she found his bedroom and she tells him that she turned a corner and it was just there, behind a wooden door at the end of a corridor. When she asks why this is so special, he stares at her for a long moment before he answers: "No one else has ever been in my room before. The TARDIS normally keeps it hidden from people who aren't me."

"So you normally sleep alone? With your nightmares?"

He stares straight ahead when he answers and she is pretty sure that he is not seeing the TARDIS interior right now. "There was a girl, once. After an incident in Utah she started to have nightmares... horrible ones. I started sleeping in her room."

She nods and takes a bite of her toast. The fact that she is the first one to have found his room makes her feel strangely special and a bit happy.

A blonde girl throws herself in front of him and gets shot. She dies in his arms. His face afterwards is the most terrifying thing she has ever seen and by now, she has seen quite a few things.

They walk away from her funeral – they don't bury their death on this planet, though, they burn them and she isn't a hundred percent sure, but she thinks she saw a lone tear on his face reflecting the glow of the dying fire – and just on and on and on until they reach the shore. He stares at the water and she carefully slips her hands into his.

"She was far too young." He whispers, not looking at her. "They always are."

"I'm so sorry."

He turns his head towards hear. "Don't ever do that."

"You know I can't promise you that." She replies somberly.

He turns around to her fully and grabs her shoulders, squeezing them tightly and while he speaks, his hands wander upwards, one cupping her face softly and the other tangling itself in her hair. "It's unnecessary. Do you hear me? You sacrificing yourself for me is the most unnecessary thing in all of this universe because I'm a Time Lord. I have a way of cheating death. So don't you dare... don't you ever dare try something stupid like this."

She doesn't nod but rather keeps her eyes fixed on his. They're green, so green, but they seem to be a burning flame more than anything and they're so, so old. Something tells her that if it ever comes down to it, it won't be her sacrificing herself for his safety – it will be him protecting her.

He takes her to 1879 and they're about to exit the TARDIS doors when she suddenly stops dead in her tracks. "I can't go out like this." She suddenly states. The Doctor whirls around in surprise, making a small "Uh?" sound and gives her a brief once over before raising an eyebrow. "Well, I don't quite look as if I'm from around here, do I?"

He claps shortly and smiles at her brightly. "Oh, we can change that!" He exclaims and, putting a hand on the small of her back, leads her away from the console room and down some corridors before he stops in front of a dark, wooden door she has never seen before. "Welcome to my wardrobe!"

With that, he pushes the doors open and she is in the biggest and fullest wardrobe she has ever seen in all of her lifetime. There are racks and racks of clothing and it takes her a moment to get used to this. Then she laughes, just a bit, a tiny little laugh about the incredibleness of it all. Even though she has been traveling with him for quite some time now, he never does fail to surprise her, even if it's only by taking her to his wardrobe, filled with probably every bit of clothing in the whole of the universe. "Aren't only girls supposed to have this much clothing?" She teases.

"Oi! Shut up, you!" He exclaims and points a finger at her. This only makes her smile and naturally, he smiles back. "So. Go pick a dress you think will fit with this time. I'll wait." She smiles and rushes by him, already fascinated by the idea of getting to wear one of those dresses, but he calls after her and she turns. "Don't take too long! I really don't like waiting."

"So where are we?" She says, smiling ever so slightly as she leans against the TARDIS console.

"I'm not sure." He answers and grins at her, a bit like a madman.

"And when are we?"

"Not sure about that one, either."

She grins and walks up to his side, holding out her hand to him. "Let's go, then."

He takes it with a big smile and as they walk to the door, she feels a slight sense of something being not quite right creeping up at the back of her mind, but banishes as he pulls open the door and they walk out, facing a metal wall and pipes and stuff. He turns and looks to both their right and their left before deciding to walk into one of the directions, dragging her with him.

It doesn't take too long – she can still see the TARDIS if she turns her head – until they pass through a doorway and cause an alarm to go of. Within less then a minute, they're surrounded by people in some sort of leather armory aiming guns at them. They surrender and go quietly, holding hands on the way to wherever they're taking them. His grip on her is so tight she almost fears her fingers will break, but she does nothing against it.

'Wherever they're taking them' turns out to be an office a few stories up in what seems to be a huge spaceship where a blonde woman awaits them. She wears a black, sharp tailored suit and a hard expression on her face that only hardens more when they're marched into their office. "Where did you find them?" She questions. One of the soldiers gives the name of something, probably the corridor they were found in, consisting of letters and numbers and then says that they were on the way to even more letters and numbers. If possible, the woman's expression hardens even more as she gives them a critical once over. Then, after a few seconds, she turns away. "Take the girl to the interrogation room. Don't be too harsh on her, the medics are all in the field, but don't be too gentle either. Get all the information we need. And don't harm her face, it's quite pretty."

It takes a little – a few seconds only, probably – until what she just said properly registered in Clara's mind and she feels panic constric her throat and tears threaten to fall. But the soldiers never get to do the dragging away they've been ordered to do because he has stepped in and started talking and once the fear stops making her ears ring, she can actually hear him say that they won't take her and that they should take him instead because she knows nothing of value, she's nobody, just a girl with no understanding of the things going on around them and if she wasn't so scared, she'd be insulted. And then she understands what he's saying.

"NO! Doctor, no, don't, please, no, no, no, no!" She screams, frantic, but he turns to face her and cups her face in this familiar, comforting way he always does, a deep and profound sadness in his eyes. She doesn't notice the tears until he wipes them away and then the first sob breaks out of her. "Please, Doctor, don't."

He wipes more tears from her face. "Oh, Clara. Don't you worry. Just keep yourself safe, alright? I'll get us out of her sooner than you can imagine." She can almost taste the lie in his words, especially in the last eleven.

He presses his lips to her forehead and then steps away, guards grabbing his arms from behind. But she isn't done yet, she is not ready to let him go to this 'interrogation' in her place, she is not ready for this and doubts she will ever be, not ready at all to see him go without knowing when she'll see him again, if ever, so she frees her arm from the guard's grip, grabs his bow tie and yanks him down to her.

Their lips meet. His are chapped and dry and there's the salty taste of tears mixed in, but oh, it feels so _good_, even though it is all desperation and fear and only a tiny hint of the love she feels, but that doesn't change how good his lips feel on hers and that she would very much to stay like this forever, thank you very much.

It doesn't last long enough before the guards drag them away from each other, his eyes wide and fixed on her and she isn't sure, but there might be tears on his face, too. She would like to call his name again, but her throat is so tight she can barely breathe, let alone speak. He blinks at her once and it feels like a promise.

She desperately cries out for him as they drag him away from her and feels the tears run down her cheeks as she struggles against their arms, not looking away from his eyes that are transfixed on her. He doesn't struggle against them as they drag him down the out of the room, not like she does, but his eyes are kind of wide with fear and she screams for him another time. Then the door closes in front of her.

She would like to dramatically turn around to face the blonde woman, but being held by the guards she can only turn her head. "We will get out of here." She says, trying to sound more sure than she feels. "We'll save each other like we always do. And then I'll blast this damned space ship out of the sky."

The woman just laughs at that and waves with her hand, gesturing them to take her away. They do, but not into the direction they seemed to have taken the Doctor.

~

She isn't quite sure how long she has been sitting in this damp little cell on this stupid ship, but estimates that it is maybe about an hour or two. Her cell is apparently quite close to the interrogation room because she can hear screams – his screams, but she pretends that they aren't his, that is clearly someone else – or maybe they have some sick way of making her hear them. She does neither know nor care, all she cares for is a way out.

With a sigh, she stops pacing and slumps down on the floor. There must be a way, she is just too stupid to find it, but there must be one, think, she tells herself, just think and you'll find it.

Fiddling with the key chain around her neck, it suddenly hits her. The TARDIS. If she finds her, she can just go and get the Doctor out of this stupid interrogation room and then off this stupid ship.

Well, she has a plan. Kind of. Now she only needs to get out of the cell and to the TARDIS.

Suddenly the key burns against her hand and she hears a familiar noise before the walls around her start to change from damp, dark, disgusting cell walls into the familiar walls of the TARDIS console room. She lets out an overjoyed cry and hugs whatever part of the ship she can get her hands on first, almost sobbing with relief. "Oh thank you! I'll never insult you again!" She swears and then runs to the console, faltering suddenly. She has absolutely no idea how to fly the ship.

That isn't necessary, she notices, because the time rotor starts moving of it's own accord and the TARDIS dematerializes before materializing again somewhere else, the Doctor materializing right behind the doors.

She lets out a cry of joy and runs to him before noticing his situation properly. He seems to be barely conscious and tied to a chair and bloody, he barely reacts at all to her sudden presence except mumbling words that sound like "Infirmary" and "Healing Coma". She nods, starts loosening the ties and once he's done, he pushes himself to his feet. She slips an arm around him instinctively, one of his arms around her shoulder and he lets himself fall into her supporting hold. It almost knocks her breath out of her lungs, but she knows he's hanging on only by a thread so she pretends to be strong and half carries, half drags him across the room, into the first corridor and through the first door on her right that has a sign saying "Infirmary" on it.

She has never been this grateful for the TARDIS' sentient nature before.

Having put him onto the first bed she could reach, she struggles to figure out what to do next. Her knowledge of anatomy and medicine was pretty much non – existant when it came to humans, but him being an alien has her at a complete loss.

Thankfully, he is conscious enough to grab her hand and drag her ear down to his mouth. The words are barely there, nothing but a faint whisper but she understands what she has to do and starts searching the equipement for what she needs. Having found it all, she places the needle where he has told her too, but hesitates.

"You sure?" She allows herself to ask, just one tiny moment of doubt because she needs to hear that he is sure of what she is about to do when she really isn't.

He nods, she rams the needle into his vein, pushes the plunger down and places the mask over his mouth. His eyes are already fluttering close but she leans down and presses her lips to his forehead. Once his eyes are closed and his ragged breathing evens out, she whispers the three words that have been on her lips for quite a while now.

~

When he wakes up, things are inevitably changed. She is by his side then, as she was the last two days since the incident. He opens his eyes blearily and squeezes her hand slightly which results in her promptly bursting into tears. It makes him smile a bit even though she feels immensely silly to cry because he is safe and awake again.

They talk about it a bit, just enough to make sense of it all. He has invited her into the hospital bed, she has curled up beside him like a cat and he's making little circular patterns on her back with his thumb while he talks. Apparently they landed on one of Earth's war ships during their first interstellar war and the many years it had been raging on had made humans suspicious of everything and everyone. Thus their reaction when two strangers showed up on their main ship, just two doors away from the weapon's chamber and with clear intent to enter exactly this room.

She's horrified by this, by the fact that the worst thing that happened to her had been something humans had done and horrified by what this war has done to her people. He tries to comfort her, but it's hard. She keeps crying and apologizing even though he keeps telling her that none of it is her fault. He misses the point completely, she wants to apologize not only for her part in it – for the fact that he had been tortured so that she wouldn't be – but also mostly for what her species has done to him.

Later on they also figure out what saved them. It was the TARDIS, this much she had understood already, but the how only becomes clear with help of the Doctor. The sentient ship had picked up her thoughts and her desperation over what was happening to the Doctor and had flown itself to her, then to him and finally to safety, saving them both. Why it had brought them there in the first place was still a mystery, though.

But those are not the things that have changed, those are just the things that are explained. Changed have other things.

They always sleep in his room now or rather, she sleeps most nights while he holds her. After he has found her crying and screaming the first night that she has not set in the Infirmary by his side, he insists on it. She is grateful because it comforts her to hear his breathing and feel his warmth when she falls asleep and wakes up again.

They hold hands almost constantly as well and even if he isn't holding her hand, a part of him is always touching a part of her, his hand on her back, her arm looped around his, their legs and shoulders brushing against each other. Personal space has always been a thing that they ignored, but their constant contact has a different meaning now. It assures them that the other one is still there, still safe at their side.

They kiss now, small and innocent, but they kiss now. Nothing more has happened and she isn't sure if she wants it to – no, that's stupid, she's sure that she wants there to be more, she wants to know his body in every way, him in every way – just yet, but the kissing is nice.

She says the three words one more time, when she's right on the blink of sleep and absolutely sure that she won't hear his answer. It's just a mumbled whisper into his shirt before her eyes close and she never knows how he reacts, but she finds that she doesn't need to because the things they do, the things he does, speak loud and clear to her.

And because Clara Oswald has always fallen in love too hard and too fast but never minded until now. The intensity of her feelings sometimes scares her, as do the intensity of his and the things he is ready to sacrifice for her. She knows that rescuing civilizations and bringing down demagogues and saving worlds is what he does, but she worries that maybe he won't save a world to save her instead. She hopes he won't and at the same time hopes he will because it would proove once and for all how much she means to him. She isn't sure how she'd handle that proof. She knows how he feels about her anyway. And she knows how she feels about him – her soft, quiet, desperate, devoted and intense love – and if what he shows of his feelings scare her, what she feels does as well.

But this love is everything, every possible facet of emotion she could imagine and she would never trade it for anything.


End file.
